Roy Hill to ramp up faster, says boss
The head of the Roy Hill iron ore project says he expects the mine to reach full capacity much faster than estimated.
Roy Hill Holdings chief executive Barry Fitzgerald said project documents gave a 30-month timeframe for reaching 55 million tonnes per annum after first shipment, scheduled in September.
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"Our view is we can do that much more efficiently," Mr Fitzgerald told the Global Iron Ore & Steel Forecast conference in Perth.
"I won't put an exact date on it but I don't think it will be 30 months," he said.
"We are very much of the view that it will be far faster than 30 months."
He said the original estimate had been conservative because Roy Hill was a new company.
Mr Fitzgerald said the $10 billion project was 76 per cent complete, on track and on budget.
In regard to a series of crane accidents at project sites, he said considerable work had been done to improve safety.
We recognised they weren't acceptable, we've responded, we've evaluated different processes, we've instituted changes in the organisation in our processes," he said.
Mr Fitzgerald said there were 60 cranes operating on the project.
He said the project's injury frequency rates were better than the State industry average.
"Our safety performance is not totally bad," he said.
